Medieval Ukrainian lands were a loosely knit group of principalities. By the late 1300s, most Ukrainian lands were controlled by either the Grand Duchy of Lithuania or the Mongolian-Tatar Golden Horde. In 1569, the Kingdom of Poland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania became the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. Poland controlled Western Ukrainian lands while eastern Ukrainian was controlled by the Ottoman Empire. In 1772, Russia, Prussia, and Austria partitioned the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth at which time several Ukrainian areas became part of Galicia, a province of Austria. By 1795, Austria controlled western Ukraine and Russia controlled eastern Ukraine. During the 1930s, all of western Ukraine was governed by eitherPoland and/or Czechoslovakia. By the end of WWI, Ukrainian territory was divided into the Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic (USSR), Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania. In 1939 the Jewish population of Ukraine was 1.5 million (1,532,776) or 3% of the total population of Ukraine. One half to two thirds of the total Jewish population of Ukraine were evacuated, killed or exiled to Siberia. Ukraine lost more population per capita than any other country in the world in WW II. After WWII, the borders of the Ukrainian SSR expanded west, including those Ukrainian areas of Galicia. At the collapse of the USSR in 1991, Ukraine became an independent state. JewishGen's ShtetlSeeker references border changes of a given town with more information at JewishGen ShtetLinks for Ukrainian towns. [February 2009]

DONOR OF REPORTS: US Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad, 1101 Fifteenth Street, Suite 1040, Washington, DC 20005. Telephone 202-254-3824. Executive Director: Joel Barries. US Commission for the Preservation of America's Heritage Abroad supplied most Ukraine information. The data is alphabetical by the name of the town. The Ukrainian government has ordered an immediate and absolute moratorium on all construction or privatization of sites that have been identified as Jewish cemeteries either now or in the past. A Joint Cultural Heritage Commission to develop and agree on a comprehensive solution to preserve and protect Jewish cemeteries. Over 1000 individual sites have been described, which is estimated to be about one-half of the recoverable sites. Contact
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for further information and details about the report of the Commission. [Date?]

Historical Research Center for Western Ukrainian communities in all countries: "ZIKARON"

Western Ukraine, Only a small remnant of its former Jewish population remains withL'viv and Chernivtsi each with about 6,000 Jews. The majority of Jews in present-day Ukraine are native Russian/Ukrainian speakers, and only some of the elderly speak Yiddish as their mother tongue (in 1926, 76.1% claimed Yiddish as their mother tongue). The average age is close to 45. To find where records can be found, right click Archives Database, thenSearch Database. ActivateSoundexand type in your ancestral town names.

The names will be sorted from Z to A. Click a second time to see them listed from A to Z. Our apologies for the unsorted condition of this list. We hope to have the list appear in A to Z sort very soon.